Worry
by ashestoashesanddusttodust
Summary: It's getting easier to recognize certain things in Tony's teammates, but he's still surprised at times about some of them.


**Worry**

**A Word**: Basically just wanted Tony waking up to find Clint looming over him, then it took a turn for the more serious. And the fluffy.

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Tony wakes up disoriented and with the unpleasant feeling he's drooled all over his face in his sleep. His eyes feel gritty as he squints into the dimly lit room he belatedly recognizes as his suite in the New York tower. His fingers find a slick trail going down his chin and Tony grimaces as he rubs it away with a fistful of the sheets he's wrapped himself up in between stumbling to bed at the unholy hour of 6 AM and whatever time it is now.

He tries to roll over but is thwarted by the tangled mess of sheets around him that somehow still manages to stay tucked firmly in at the bottom of the bed no matter how hard Tony kicks out to try and get free. He's exhausted what little energy he'd gotten from his nap before remembering he'd attached the sheets to the bed frame last week with bolts to keep them from coming untucked.

"Jarvis," Tony goes limp and gives up on getting free, sleep hovers on the edge of his mind waiting to take him again, and he'll let it. Just as soon as he figures out how long he's already slept. "What time is it?"

"Just after one. Go back to sleep."

Tony's eyes are closed and he's starting to slide under before the fact that his answer didn't come with a dry quip or an accent really penetrates. He's wide awake and halfway out of the bed in a relatively short amount of time. A much shorter time frame than it would have taken him a few years ago, but the derisive snort -coming from the head of Tony's bed- isn't very impressed sounding.

It's also just familiar enough for Tony to recognize it and go limp with relief. Sliding head first onto the floor, stopped from falling completely out of bed by the sheets still clinging to his legs. "Clint, you son of a bitch!"

"What?" The word is innocent and clueless but Tony knows if he were to look up the man would be giving him the widest shit eating grin possible for a man to pull off and still live.

"What, what?" Tony curses and sits up, using his entrapped legs to pull himself back up onto the bed in an ungainly heap of flailing limbs that draws more than a few snickers from the archer. "The fuck're you doing in my _room_, asshole?"

Clint Barton is in fact wearing a shit eating grin when Tony finally sets himself to rights. He's also perched on the top of Tony's headboard. A position that doesn't look comfortable or possible, but does look every bit as creepy as the man had probably intended it to look as he looms directly over where Tony knows his head usually ends up when sleeping.

"I was just passing by," Clint shifts his position. Body moving too fluidly and easily for Tony to tell exactly how long the man might have been in that position before Tony woke up. "Thought I'd see if you were still breathing."

"And how were you going to do that?" Tony's not entirely sure what's more disturbing. The fact that he can easily accept that Clint was just "passing by" his room (the man has a fondness for traveling through areas no man was ever meant to travel), or the threat implied by his last sentence along with his looming. Tony's life, ladies and gentlemen. "By smothering me a little in my sleep?"

"Eh, you woke up too soon," Clint shrugs and jumps off the bed. Avoiding the mattress entirely as he lands without a sound. His fingers tuck into the front loops of the worn jeans that Tony just now realizes the man is wearing. His mind had automatically filled in the agent's usual uniform when he woke up so abruptly. Clint's head tilts to the side quizzically, but his eyes are hard and intent as he stares Tony down for several uncomfortable seconds. His voice has lost it's slim edge of humor when he speaks again. "Bruce has your workshop in quarantine."

"Wait, what?!" Tony yelps and begins to work in earnest to get free of his bed. His shop? The sheets slide away as he mentally goes over what could have happened in the few hours he's been asleep. "Why?"

"Some chemicals mixed and spilled," Clint reaches out and shoves Tony back. Holding firm as Tony immediately tries to edge around him. "Apparently they're really bad on the lungs. Bruce is dealing with it, and unless you can tell me how that happened you're staying in this bed and getting more sleep."

"That's, uh," Tony blinks and stops trying to bat Clint's hand away as he thinks. Chemicals. He doesn't _remember_ using anything that could have been dangerous. Well, more so than usual, but then he also doesn't really remember stumbling upstairs to pass out in his own bed. "Huh."

Clint doesn't say anything. Just tilts his head expectantly and gives off the impression that he can and would wait all day for an answer.

"Well, if Bruce has it in hand-" Tony flounders. Adrenaline has deserted him and exhaustion has dug it's claws back into him. Even Tony recognized that he was in no condition to do anything but sleep at the moment. Especially if he was apparently too tired to notice what he was doing. If needed, Tony could and would bulldoze his way through it, but only if he really needed to.

"He does," Clint relaxes minutely. An action that Tony knows doesn't mean he's any less ready to kick ass at the drop of a pin if needed.

"Well," Tony lets himself collapse back down and stares up at the ceiling, feeling the room sway under him in a way that it really shouldn't be. "Tell him if he needs me I'm here. Unconscious, but here still."

"Jarvis can do that," Clint says firmly. The way he'll often state an objective he plans on completing during a mission before all hell breaks loose. Or, Tony realizes slowly, how he'd once informed a bristling and full-on snarling Natasha that he was going to follow her around for a day until her concussion was cleared by medical even if he had to hobble around on his own broken leg to do it. The resulting fight had lasted a solid twelve hours and took three carpenters to fix the damage done to the walls.

Worry is still something that Tony has a hard time recognizing and dealing with when coming from normal people who know how to properly express the emotion. So, Tony's understandably a little slow to pick it up from one of the resident assassins who only seem to know how to comfortably express the emotion through callous violence

"Ok," Tony agrees easily, because he _has_ learned how to best pacify worriers after many years of having the basic etiquette beaten into his head by Rhodey and Pepper. He still forces his head to turn to the side and gives his best glare at the other man. "But you are _not_ looming over me while I sleep. Seriously, what are you? A Cullen?"

"What can I say? You're my own personal brand of heroin, Tony," Clint doesn't crack a smile as he rocks back on his heels. Laughing eyes taking in the layout of the room before he walks over to a pretty comfortable high backed chair near the covered window. He's an indistinct blur in the dim light of the room, but Tony can just make out the glitter of his eyes. "I just can't resist."

"Pathetic, Barton," Tony relaxes himself. The rocking of the room smoothing out as his muscles go limp and eyes close. His words slurring slightly around a yawn. "Never get laid with those shit lines."

Tony doesn't hear the laugh or the inevitable witty comeback to that as he doesn't so much fall asleep as he's forcibly grabbed and pulled under by it.

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End file.
